WAR INTELLIGENCE WORK

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1931, Page 2

WAR INTELLIGENCE WORK

METHODS EMPLYOYED.

ADDITION TO IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM.

LONDON, December 18.

A collection has been made in one of the upper galleries of the Imperial War Museum at South Ken'sington ot many of the objects, maps, and pliovugraphs employed during the Great War to obtain intelligence of enemy dispositions. The writers of military Histories as a rule assume in their readers a knowledge of the organisation, as well as the results, of a trench raid or an aerial reconnaissance. The elaborateness of the preparations and the human.difficulties and human care involved cannot well be realised without a study of the objects assembled, says the "Times.” The general methods of military intelligence are summarised in a series of photographs ranged together. Aeroplanes and observation balloons, runers, motor-cyclists, field telegraphists and telephonists, portable wireless units; and visual signallers are seen observing and conveying information. The shifting backwards und fonvurds bf the pigeon lofts alld dog kennels as the fighting line moved can be seen here, together with the tiny metal fittings in which pnpqfrs conveyed by animal messengers were hidden, The reports and directions of the French and Belgian "agents” behind the lines (sometimes written on minute pieces of - paper which could be swallowed in an emergency) / can be seen side by side. Among the most personal of the relics are a hollowed five-franc piece used by an Allied agent for conveying his messages, a portion of clothing used as a concealed note-book' by a Belgian woman (who conveyed it to an Allied Consulate), and a map of La Bassee in 1915, drawn with great fineness and exact military observation by two French schoolgirl refugees. One case tells the full story of a trench raid. The other from headquarters, the detailed instructions, the map drawn for the party, and their spoil in enemy clothing, note-books, and letters are shown together. A group of the party taken behind th° lines, and pictures of their leaving tlie trenches for the raid and their successful return amplify their written record. Even fuller is the, exhibit which traces the history of a counter-battery operation. The damage done by the enemy guns is .first reported, then in some thirty authentic photographs, documents, and maps the visitor is shown how this battery is "spotted” from the air, made tile target of a British heavy battery, damaged, weakened, and finally destroyed. The notes made at successive Stages by tile "flash spotters” and range-finders form ft commentary upon the photographs, reports and plans.

Striking Msp?. Again, the visitor is shown the artillery direction board actually used by the enemy Friedrich Battery at Ostend (partly de aced on their evacuation); beside it, and agreeing in detail, are aerial photographs of the central area pieced together by British aerial photographers, and the accurate map constructed on the Allied side from their, observations. Maps of the German order pf battle, and British disposition maps are shown below a great zig-zag map 50ft long. and in semi-reilief, which illustrates a, large pdrtjoh of the'complete trench system in March, 1918. Traffic, trench, and artillery; barrage maps of large, but still limited, areas can be compared with the straight map presented to Sir William Orpeii by Lord Haig, and illustrating the gradual process of the British advance from the summer to the late autumn of 1918. More detailed, and-finer drawn,, are two maps constructed by the late Dr. H. R. Hall, of the British Museum; which plot, the course of every single German aircraft during two raids on London in 1917, while a German officer has presented a series ,of panoramic photographs which show Ypres and Zillebeke as they looked from Hill 60 in 1915.

Rhotography and map-making contribute a 1 very large proportion to the exhibition,, but drawings by Muirliead Bone and Adrian Hill, and annotated panoramic views of De Glelin, show how the service of the “war artists” on various fronts was. by no means confined to historical records of the nation at war, such as decorate other proportions of the Museum galleries. The value in .range-finding of sound-films is also indicated, and a record in this form of the Armistice, as heard at the front in 1918, shows how\ at eleven o’clock on November 11 the artillery became silent, but two accidental pistol shots broke the stillness.